


All Your Love Will Be Exorcised

by UniverseOnHerShoulders



Series: Take Me To The Stars [31]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s12e01 Spyfall Part 1, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:08:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UniverseOnHerShoulders/pseuds/UniverseOnHerShoulders
Summary: As the team prepare for Barton's party, Clara has her suspicions about O. Dangerous, or even fatal, suspicions...
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & The Master (Dhawan), Thirteenth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Series: Take Me To The Stars [31]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1139201
Comments: 6
Kudos: 63





	All Your Love Will Be Exorcised

**Author's Note:**

> From allnewtpir's prompt:
> 
> _We're in the TARDIS during "Spyfall Part 1", where the tuxes are being sorted out. In the middle of putting hers on, O does something or does something that tips Clara off that O is the Master._

Clara isn’t entirely sure what gives it away. She’s halfway through buttoning her waistcoat, the loose ends of her bowtie hanging on either side of her neck, when her gaze flicks idly over to O and she immediately tenses up. He’s not looking at her; not paying anyone else in the room the blindest bit of attention, because his focus is entirely on the Doctor, laser-precise and all-consuming. He’s staring at her as she slips on her black jacket, and the look that burns in his eyes is so nuanced that Clara struggles to decode the layers of meaning therein; struggles to understand his intentions at first – are they predatory? sexual? sexist? – before understanding dawns on her instantaneously. There’s only one person who could look at the Doctor in such a way; only one person who could look at her with such an intense, intoxicating cocktail of loathing, adoration and triumph. A fellow Time Lord, and one she had hoped to see the back of; a fellow Time Lord who, as she watches, adjusts his cufflinks with meticulous care, eyes not leaving the Doctor. The Master.

Panic floods through her, white-hot and fervid, and she shivers instinctively. He’s here, inside the TARDIS; here, with the Doctor at her most vulnerable; here, with their friends; friends who are frighteningly mortal. And yet he’s controlling himself – he hasn’t pulled any weapons or made any overt attempts on their lives, and Clara sincerely hopes that perhaps some of the Doctor’s decades-long labour of attrition convincing Missy to be good might have stayed with him through regeneration, but she knows that her optimism is misplaced. It’s far more likely that he’s biding his time, although for what, Clara isn’t sure. He’s had ample opportunity to hurt any of them before now, not least while they were sleeping in his cabin in the Outback the previous night, and she wonders what exactly he’s waiting for; wonders what situation he is anticipating as the optimum moment to strike.

She looks over at the Doctor, who is now laughing and joking with Yaz, and knows that telling her O’s real identity would be fruitless. The Time Lady won’t listen; she’s far too trusting and good-natured to believe Clara’s suspicions, and besides, any confrontation inside the TARDIS could prove fatal in more ways than one. Clara doesn’t know whether the Master has a TARDIS of his own, but the thought of the ship itself being captured is abhorrent, and Clara looks around and feels a stab of horror at the thought of the place she holds so dear being perverted as a weapon, or a machine of war.

No, if the Doctor can’t or won’t intervene, then it’s up to her. It’s her responsibility to take action to thwart him, and so with that in mind, she adopts a bright, vacant smile and calls:

“O?”

He starts, his attention jumping to her, and she can see a tangible, split-second battle occur as he fights to extinguish the flames of hatred and contempt in his gaze, forcing himself to smile benignly instead.

“Sorry,” she says apologetically, her grin widening in a way that feels entirely false as she pretends she hasn’t noticed the fervid detestation in his expression. “Could you give me a hand with this bowtie?”

“Sure,” he says easily, striding over to her and taking hold of each end of the navy blue cloth. He beams at her, some of his former charm reappearing as he crosses them over. “They’re tricky things, aren’t they?”

“They are,” Clara concurs, and he moves one side behind the other, fashioning it into something that seems, to Clara’s mind, worryingly similar to a noose. The Master is inches away from her, his hands holding onto the fabric at her throat with sureness, and it takes all of her resolve to breathe, in as confident a tone as she can manage: “I know who you are.”

“And who’s that?” he says with a throaty chuckle, although she sees a flash of panic in his expression. His hands fall still at her throat, although he keeps hold of the bowtie, the noose-like loop still under his control. With flippancy, he continues in what is intended as a jaunty tone: “What, have you cracked my secret identity? MI6 won’t be too pleased.”

“No, they won’t,” Clara mentally steels herself. “Master.”

His eyes flash dangerously and he looks over at the Doctor, who is still utterly engrossed in conversation with Yaz and Ryan, and then his hands drop to her wrists, encircling them with surprising strength and pulling her forcefully away from the group before she has time to react. As he drags her into the corridor outside the wardrobes, he releases her wrists and puts a hand over her mouth, the other hand dipping into his jacket and retrieving something long and sharp and pressing it into her abdomen. Part of her wants to roll her eyes, embarrassed that he hasn’t caught on to the fact that stabbing her would be useless; the other part of her is flooded with adrenaline, her breathing coming in short gasps against his palm.

“Well, you clever little thing,” he says condescendingly. “What gave it away?”

Clara looks from his face down to the hand covering her mouth with a pointed expression.

“If I move this hand, don’t you dare scream. Scream, and I’ll make sure you never do it again.”

Clara doesn’t bother contradicting him, and the hand is taken away.

“The giveaway was the way you were looking at her,” she manages, with surprising calmness. “The anger and loathing and yet… the sadness.”

“I’m not sad,” he snaps. “I’m not… how dare you say that? How dare you suggest I care about her?”

“You forget that I had the advantage of knowing your predecessor,” Clara reminds him, unable to resist sticking her own metaphorical knife in. “I _know_ you care about her, so protesting otherwise is a rather fruitless exercise, really, isn’t it? I’ve seen you care about her, not least when you suspected she was about to die and begged for my help.”

“She’s a thorn in my side,” the Master growls, although a flash of sentimentality passes over his face. “One that needs to be disposed of.”

“That’s not how Missy viewed her. That’s not how Missy felt about her.”

“No, but you’ve missed the rather obvious point here that _I’m not her_.”

“And yet,” Clara notes. “You are.”

“Shut up,” he hisses, and the sharp object is pressed all the harder against her abdomen. Clara wonders, irrationally, whether it’ll damage her jacket; she sincerely hopes not. “I’m not that woman, thank Rassilon, and I would never have made her mistakes. I would never have stood with the Doctor; I would rather have died than betray everything my previous selves fought for.”

“And yet… she did,” Clara reaches out and lays her palm against his cheek in a gesture of surprising tenderness, and the Master recoils as though he’s been slapped, hissing with anger as he knocks her hand away and takes hold of her by the lapels, slamming into the wall again, her head hitting the metal uncomfortably hard. Her head starts to spin, but she raises her chin defiantly and says in a calmest tone she can manage: “And I’m sorry we couldn’t save her. You. We tried; we really tried, but we thought it was too late. We thought she was long-dead by the time we got there.”

“Well, isn’t that touching,” he rolls his eyes. “But you still left me there to die.”

“And we’re sorry,” Clara repeats, then asks: “What are you going to do to her? To the Doctor?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Because you like to show off.”

“That’s a fair point,” he lets out a bitter laugh. “She’s going to suffer, hopefully unbearably. And then she’s going to die. I wasn’t factoring in you; do you think I should kill you first? Or after I kill her funny little friends?”

“I don’t think killing me is going to get you very far.”

“Oh, but you’re wrong,” he leers, and Clara’s skin crawls. “She’s so very attached to you, isn’t she? So terribly, terribly attached. I really think that watching you die will just be… the icing on the metaphorical cake. She’s going to scream so much as she watches the life leave your eyes. It’ll break her little hearts.”

“And yet you’re forgetting one very important thing,” Clara says quietly. “One major, major detail…”

“Which is?” he snaps impatiently.

Clara stands on her tiptoes and whispers: “I can’t die.”

The blood drains from his face then, and he pushes her back into the wall, harder this time. Her head hits the metal again, and she begins to feel painfully lightheaded.

“No,” he reasons, his tone cold. “But you can _hurt_.”

He seizes her by the shoulders and repeats the action for the final time and then lets go of her, allowing her to slip to the floor, which she hits uncomfortably hard.

The last thing Clara remembers is the way that he sneers at her as he opens his mouth and calls, in the warm, empathic manner of O: “Help! Somebody help; something’s happened to Clara!”

There’s the sound of running feet, and everything goes black.


End file.
